Throughout the film there are quite a few cats. From Stephanie's house cat, to Lydie's cat and the white cat that Stephanie plays with before having sex. Am I reading to far into this...I just noticed a lot of cats and I think the film is too thoughtful for them not to have any sort of significance.
shareI agree, I was wondering if there was any significance to them. Apart from Lydie finding the earring in the cat bix. Maybe that's it. But I still don't get how the earring got there if her husband didn't cheat.
shareI don't know about the cat references.
Her husband did cheat. That's the point.
We know--and she knows, and he knows--there is no way that a pierced earring (note: a very ample-sized diamond stud) could have ended up in the bathroom, in the cat box, located off her and her husband's bathroom...unless he had a woman in there.
[deleted]
Well, there's the old wives tale about pregnant women being around cats and the real risk of toxoplasmosis from handling cat litter as she said in the movie.
Tomorrow's just your future yesterday!
yes--having the cat box in their bathroom where she spends a lot of time and is very close to when she sits on the toilet--
plus picking that earring out of the cat box
I kept thinking that was what had given her the initial still birth and was waiting to find out toxoplasmosis might have been factor in the girl's early birth or that Lydie might have had an early birth/still birth again...
it was a false lead and really unfair--in that it seems such a strong presence that leads nowhere and had to have been done deliberately--
no director with an ounce of sense is going to require cats in a movie unless there is specific dramatic reason...
"...That's the beauty of argument, Joey. If you argue correctly, you're never wrong..."
I was noticed that there were a lot of deer in the movie. I thought that maybe they represented Stephanie's innocense (and lack there of after the rape when we saw a dead on the side of the road....thoughts?
By the way, it says BALLS on your face
There's an old wives tale that cats can steal the air from a baby's mouth or want to harm babies in general. The movie could be using this to foreshadow the danger to the pregnancies in the movie although there were enough signals for that already.
The cats serve to establish the connection between Stephanie and Lydie. The viewer notices that both women own cats before the filmmakers make any greater connections between the two. The cats put the viewer into a frame of mind that allows him to begin to subconsciously expect more parallels between Stephanie and Lydie.
Symbolically, the fact that Lydie finds the earring of a potential "other woman" in the catbox, which might give Lydie a parasite that would harm the baby, indicates that the earring is dangerous to Lydie and her child.
The cats also help develop Stephanie's personality. The fact that she likes cats demonstrates a caring, nurturing side. The viewer knows that Stephanie is not a complete monster. Also, the fact that Stephanie seeks out the cat at the party shows that she is timid and that she wants affection. These qualities help explain why she did not scream or fight or otherwise act to keep the boys she just met from having sex with her.
no matter what that scale said: the cat was not fat!
His name...was Julio Iglesias!
I thought the cats that Stephanie played with established her desire to feel connected to others. The move felt very cold, but there was a warmth to her time with the cats.
With Lydie, the cat felt like a nuissance. The cat is never a positive thing at Lydie's house. I don't remember seeing the cat, but the smelly cat box was very prominant. It represents responsibility and parallels a child. This is shown in the scene where Lydie tells Paul that she wishes he should take care if the cat box. It its very easy to take care of a cat box, and Lydie's real problem in that scene may be her fear she will be "stuck" with the responsibility of this child who she may not even want.